Nicholas Maronese
Senior Staff writer
“Fat” was probably one of the first words that came to mind when you saw NOW Magazine’s March 31 cover illustration of a Photoshopped, near-naked Rob Ford.
Funny, considering the attached article—“Naked ambition”—by the magazine’s associate news editor, Enzo DiMatteo, who critically examined Ford’s political strategies, but not once mentioned his weight.
Yet the now-infamous cover was little more than a visual fat joke—Ford’s face plastered onto the body of a rotund model in various stages of undress, stomach sticking out, curlicue-haired chest prominently on display. They were an open invitation to laugh at our leader, to guffaw at his gut.
But NOW’s not the only outlet to have extended such an invitation. Nearly every publication from blogTO to the Globe and Mail has commented on the mayor’s 300-odd pounds and in one way or another branded him “fat.” And every time they did, they got feedback from Ford. He is unabashedly critical of most major media—but maybe he should be.
The Globe and Mail, like much of the press, is on bad terms with Rob Ford.
In June 2004, Globe reporter John Barber famously muttered “fat fuck” during a media scrum interview with then-councillor Ford. Ford seized on the slip, and chased Barber out of the building.
And last October, nine days before the mayoral election, columnist Stephen Marche wrote an essay suggesting that Ford was popular because he was fat: he dropped that “f-word” 17 times in the 700-word editorial. It was taken down from their site two days later, after Ford made public an angry letter.
Dozens of Toronto blogs and weekly newspapers, too, have covered the controversy that’s been drummed up over the guy’s girth—NOW provokes, the torontoist reflects and blogTO perpetuates the debate by repeating everything. Again that word—“fat”—is tossed back and forth like a hot potato slathered with bacon and cheese.
And then there are the parodies. Satirical blogs like robfordmayor.com, a parody written in first-person Ford, made the mayor-elect’s weight its bread and butter (and gravy), and were issued cease-and-desist letters from Ford’s office for their efforts. (They instead switched names, to blobford.com.) Even music network MTV took a swipe, drafting a series of campaign parody videos in which comic Daryn Jones, in a silver wig and fat suit, boasts “I’m as handsome as John Goodman,” in falsetto.
While his heft may make for good comic fodder, it’s hard to see what it has to do with Ford’s policies. In October 2010, Toronto radio station 680News interviewed a retired doctor who raised concerns Ford might be prone to a heart attack or stroke; and a month earlier, NOW online editor Joshua Errett reasoned the results of the mayor’s physical should be public because his health affects his governance.
“Should something happen to the mayor, succession rules say that deputy mayor fills the position,” he noted. “That’s a fairly high level of uncertainty, especially if a candidate is in ailing or poor shape.” Errett admitted the topic was a touchy one.
But even if you buy that, it doesn’t excuse covers like NOW’s “Naked Truth” or headlines like “Rob Ford: fat chance.” While there’s some justification for drawing a politician’s health into the fray, the real reason so many outlets are taking jabs at Ford’s girth probably has something to do with how we look at weight as a society.
“You’d never see a column like [Stephen Marche’s] about someone being South Asian or black,” says Daniel Dale, the Toronto Star’s City Hall reporter. “But a lot of people see weight as fair game.”
He thinks people generally find it OK to target, mock and blame heavier people because we associate an element of control—er, a lack of it—with weight. In his opinion, though, weight has no place in news reporting, and isn’t relevant to public politics at all.
But not all writers at the Star agree. Columnist Heather Mallick, in her opinion pieces on Rob Ford, hasn’t once used the phrase “fat”. Even in “Waking up with Rob Ford,” when her use of metaphor arguably gives her some artistic licence, she calls him “angry”, “pink-faced” and “sweaty”. She doesn’t mention weight once, but not because she thinks it irrelevant.
“I don’t care what the man looks like,” says Mallick. “[…] I think he’s a dreadful mayor but it has nothing to do with his body type.” She personally doesn’t care about Ford’s fat, but does think it’s arguably relevant, and that it’s not a sensitive subject.
“I think his weight is emblematic. He looks the way the average Canadian looks,” she explains. “[…] And I don’t think weight is a touchy topic. I wouldn’t have pulled [Stephen] Marche’s column.”
It’s nevertheless possible, the Star has proven, to talk about our mayor without talking about his “gut”. But maybe it’s just too tempting for other outlets to resist.
While the Star hasn’t dropped the “F-bomb” on Ford, it still got on his bad side. The low-fat newspaper hasn’t been able to reach Ford since he took office, except for a brief post-operative phone call early this February when he had some kidney stones removed.
Ford is notoriously easy to anger, as are his supporters (DiMatteo is posting the most threatening phone calls he’s got about his story so far on his Twitter page: one Ford fan apparently would like to “submit an image of your editor naked with a bullet hole in his head”). While the media’s grade-school name-calling and jokes are patently adolescent, his reaction has been considered immature, too.
During the Barber debacle, for example, Ford and councillor John Mammoliti harassed the Globe reporter until he was forced to leave; blocking the elevator, Ford grinned at Barber and shouted: “Why did you call me that, John? That was a verbal assault.”
But from time to time he lightens up. This past February, during a City Hall scrum, Daniel Dale recalls, Ford was asked about his refusal to talk to media directly, noting his brother Doug often seemed to act as his mouthpiece. The mayor disagreed.
“I’m always available,” Ford replied. “It’s hard to hide 300 pounds of fun.”
Who’s laughing now?
Rob Ford surprised newspapers and magazines everywhere as he won a 70 per cent approval rating on his overall performance , according to an Ipsos Public Affairs survey conducted last month. Many Torontonians rated him highly for his pledge to repeal the land transfer tax and his handling of tax dollars.
“I’m going to events, I’m returning people’s phone calls, I’m watching every single dime that’s being spent out of City Hall,” said the mayor of the results. “I’m doing what I said I’m going to do.”
Thus far, the mayor has seen favourable ratings in many polls, including one conducted in late February by Forum Research Inc., which found that 60 per cent of Torontonians approve of Ford. Though the mayor is still the butt of jokes for some, Ford seems to be laughing all the way to the polls.
With files from The National Post
